In China, kids ask the tough questions at Party Congress

When
a nation's most outspoken journalists are 11-year-olds, is it a good sign for the
future? On the one hand, they might grow up to ask probing questions. On the
other hand, they might end up following the path taken by their older peers and
stick to scripted exchanges.

The
issue comes courtesy of the 18th Party Congress ongoing in China, a
five-yearly stage-managed event to determine the Communist Party's top leaders.
It is notorious for its secrecy. Two kids from the Beijing-based Chinese Teenagers News took center stage
at the event on Tuesday when they bucked tradition to ask officials questions
they'd thought up themselves. Zhang Jiahe and Sun Luyuan raised questions of
rising housing costs and food safety respectively, according to Agence
France-Presse.

A
flood of coverage
of their efforts followed in China, even though the answers they received were
far from revealing, AFP said. The heightened interest about this relatively
minor interlude speaks volumes about how hard it is to ask straightforward
questions at a political event in China, and, more broadly, the difficulty of
reporting on a huge occasion that seems determined not to be newsworthy. While
the previous 2007 Congress saw some opening up in line with the Party's
strategy to attract international reporters to the 2008 Olympics, many
politicians have shunned the limelight this year, according to Reuters.

The
most dramatic revelations of the week are expected Thursday, when the next
generation of Politburo Standing Committee leaders will be announced in a
manner that pre-dates contemporary norms for government-media relations by several
decades. Expect no speeches, or even press releases: Journalists will be left
to interpret the new pecking order according to the sequence in which the
officials appear on stage, news reports say.

There's
nothing here to suggest that new leaders will transform the way the Party
operates overnight. But there is one possible change that could signal media
reform: While the Standing Committee has been made up of nine members for
years, it might be reduced this week to seven, according to local and international
media reports. The change is significant, Cheng Li of the Brookings Institute
told the Wall Street Journal'sChina
Real Time blog, because "the two positions they are considering eliminating
are the leaders in charge of propaganda and police. Over the course of five or
maybe even 10 years, these two leaders really blocked a lot of economic
liberalization policy and political reform initiatives. ... Eliminating these two
positions sends a direct signal that political reform is under way."

Edging
the propaganda chief further from the center of power is not the same as
dismantling the extensive machinery of information control CPJ has documented
in China. But if it happens on Thursday, it could be a sign that today's pre-teen
journalists will be able to continue asking real questions of their leaders in
the future.

Madeline Earp is senior researcher for CPJ’s Asia Program. She has studied Mandarin in China and Taiwan, and graduated with a master’s in East Asian studies from Harvard. Follow her on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.